Sunday, August 16, 2015

Sentimental Sundays: a bizarre small-world moment

Sentimental Sundays is back with a little more random nostalgia.

Hey look, I've got a Padres pocket schedule from 1992.

I'm not sure if I ever attended a Padres game in 1992, but I've got a pocket schedule, at least.
I did attend the All-Star Fanfest at the convention center that year, though. That was fun.
I miss 7/24 Bank, the sponsor of this schedule.. I remember they had a catching jingle. 7-24, 7-24 city, showing the country how good.. a city can be!
I guess San Diego Trust & Savings Bank is still around, but they've dropped the "7/24" part.

Oh, and speaking of the Padres, congrats to Matt Kemp for becoming the first Padre to hit for the cycle! It's not really a big deal.. but no, it is a big deal! Glad at least something came out of this season for San Diego to be proud of.

What else have I dug up for today?

Oh these were some personalized stickers to label a book as one's own. I did use many of them back in the day, but still ended up with a dozen or so left over. I think they're pretty dried up at this point, and don't stick very well anymore. Otherwise I might be still tempted to use them. I'd put one on my laptop and write in the word "mac" before book.

Next is a trio of postcards..

Per the un-addressed backs, none of these were ever actually mailed, rather just bought as souvenirs..

I believe I got all these "in person" as I've been to all these places in my youth.. the Grand Canyon, the San Xavier mission near Tucson, and Disneyland.

Ok, the last thing for today has a story that goes with it. My wife and I went to the Organic Beer Festival on Friday after work (as Matt Kemp was hitting for the cycle). It's always a good time, with lots of interesting craft beers, plus live music and various merchant tents and whatnot. Not very long after we were through the door, we got suckered in to play a "game" which was just rolling a pair of oversized dice hoping to roll a 6 or 11. Neither of us got it, but the guy offered us a "consolation prize" of a free trip. It's one of those things where you have to sit through a 90 minute presentation where they give you a hard sell on a time share. And in return you get a vacation of your choice from a few options. Somehow, we agreed to it, even paid a $40 refundable payment to make sure we don't back out of our presentation scheduled for next weekend.

We have zero interest in going in on a time share. My wife is finishing grad school and my job is ending by the end of the year and I have nothing else lined up at the moment. So we're in no position to get a time share right now. So we just have to suffer through 90+ minutes of some asshole aggressively trying to get our money, and if we escape it, we'll be rewarded with a vacation to Maui at some point within a year. Airfare is not included with that one, just 4 days and 3 nights at a decent hotel or whatever. The in-laws have offered to pony up for first-class tickets for us, as the trip is tentatively planned as a graduation celebration vacation for my wife next year, and the flight would be her folks' graduation present.

Oh, and here's the crazy "small world" moment!.. As my wife was jotting down our info for the guy scheduling our presentation, he sees my name and said, "You went to Granite Hills High School and Montgomery Middle School, right?" I was like daaaamn, this salesman comes prepared!

He told me he thought I looked familiar and explained we went to middle school together and I beat him in a race once. I won and he got second-place. I was blown away, not just that we went to school together 25 years ago, but that he would remember me after all that time. (We went to different high schools.) I felt bad that I had no recollection of him at all. I've bragged on the blog before that I was a hotshit sprinter in my younger days and won a lot of races. Most of them are just a blur to me now.

I really hope it wasn't one of those Billy Madison List things where he's held a grudge all these years for beating him.

I guess he got his revenge by getting me suckered into a time share presentation.

Keep in mind I grew up in the San Diego area, and now live in Portland, OR. I don't think I've ever randomly ran into anyone up here that I knew from San Diego before. So yeah, that was crazy.

I looked him up in my old Middle School yearbook, and sure enough, there he is.

(He's Jeff in the middle there.)

I vaguely remember him now after seeing his old picture.

So a two-pronged reader interaction question today:

Have you ever attended a time share presentation? If so, any advice for me?

6 comments:

I've always wanted to get into one of those time share presentations for the free vacation. When will I come across crazy dice?!?!?!?

As for small world, one that comes to mind is this time I was in grad school. It was my 2nd year, 3 years after graduating from undergrad, and I'm driving down the east part of Kirkwood in Bloomington, IN. Anyone who knows Kirkwood knows that it's basically all four way stops on the main stretch, and at the first 4 way stop I notice a girl crossing the street who looks kind of familiar. She sees me too and gives me a "You? You!" look and arm pointy thing. And I sort of recognized her so I gave her an arm pointy thing back.

Got back to my house later and had a Facebook request from this girl who went to my undergrad. We didn't know each other crazy well, but it was a small enough school so I definitely remembered her.

Last weekend I went to Mizzou fan day and met most of the football team and got autographs. One guy noticed my Royals hat and we talked a bit as the line was slow. He asked if I was from KC, and I said no. I usually say "I live between Columbia and Sedalia" because nobody has heard of my hometown of 750 people. However I said "no I live in Pilot Grove", and he asked if I knew somebody which was about 4 years older than me. As it turns out, the guy married the players cousin or something, and the player (Tyler Hunt) actually visits my town a couple times a year. It was pretty cool to know someone actually knew the town.

I've never done a time share, but I have been invited to a few of them, and almost did it once or twice. Didn't Bart and Lisa sit through one once on The Simpsons? I kind of remember something like it. Hope you guys can suffer through it and enjoy the trip.

I went to a leadership conference in DC when I was a junior in high school. I started talking to a girl I thought was cute...turned out that we went to school together through the fourth grade (when we both moved away). We ended up dating for a bit after that, then broke up and didn't talk. My second year of college, I ran into her randomly...she was living two blocks away from me. It was really weird.

1. I ran into a guy that I went to high school with and was on the track team with 6 years after I graduated high school in a bar in Athens, Georgia.

2. I had a summer job in 1993 where I worked all over the east coast and Midwest. A guy who worked with me was from North Syracuse and was named Todd. Fast forward 7 years, and I am talking to the receptionist in my then-law firm's Charlotte office. She sounds Midwestern, so I ask where she is from. She says, "North Syracuse." I ask if she knows my friend Todd. After a major pause, she says, "I dated him for four years, starting in the fall of 1993."

3. I was at the grocery store yesterday morning here in Dunwoody, GA. A guy in front of me in line had a "Party like it's 1982" shirt on. He and his wife were parked next to me outside, so I said, "When I see that shirt, I think it's a Brewers shirt." He responds, "it is!" We lived 20 minutes apart in Wisconsin.

4. My wife is from Columbus, Georgia, and we met in 2009. 19 years earlier, we were at the same airshow in Oshkosh, Wisconsin. Turns out her uncle lived 15 minutes from where I grew up because he worked for Miller Brewing for 30 years, so he took my wife and her brother to the airshow in 1990 on the same day I was there.

Actually, I have a lot of small world stories, I guess!

As for timeshare presentations, I've never done them. Good luck with it!

The first time I took my ex-girlfriend down to see my parents in Vegas, we all went out to breakfast at one of them buffets. I got up to get seconds and when I returned, she was talking to my parents about her relatives. Turns out... my dad golfs with her uncle about once a month.

About a year after Jennifer and I broke up, I started dating another girl named Jennifer. When I went back down to Vegas, my parents took me and two of their friends to the same buffet (Red Rock Casino) and were asking about the new girl I was dating. I started describing her to them, when my mom's friend asks... "is her family from Chicago?". Indeed they were. My parents's friends are close friends with her family.

And one more... that's kinda similar to yours. Last March we had our school's open house and one of the parents came up to me and asked if I went to Herman Junior High. Ends up... we went to school together. He recognized my last name and told me we had a few classes together. Unfortunately... I didn't remember him.

Have never been to a timeshare presentation, but a friend of mine and his wife went to one right before they got married and he told a great story about it. He was easily able to decline all of the offers from a variety of salespeople brought in......until.......they brought in a grandmotherly-type who was absolutely the greatest salesperson he said he'd ever encountered......she hit all the highlights and closed like no one else. Think they only signed up for 5 years or so.....

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